


Kastrup

by lwise2019



Series: Mikkel's Story [4]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2021-01-23 22:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21327781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lwise2019/pseuds/lwise2019
Summary: The team heads out to scavenge some books, but first they pass the failed defenses at Kastrup.
Series: Mikkel's Story [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536739
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Kastrup

Sigrun had chosen spot number 24 as their first scavenging spot. Mikkel would have preferred spot number 11, but his one tentative attempt to suggest this was utterly disregarded. He schooled himself to accept this, acknowledging that he had spent decades building a reputation as frivolous, insubordinate, and unreliable, a reputation which could not be undone in a day. Then too, he reminded himself, they didn't really know whether 24 or 11 or any other spot would have a salvageable collection of books, for the records on which the sponsors relied were old and fragmentary, and nine decades of neglect could have ruined any or all of the supposed collections. Besides, there was the grim fact that they had lots of time to scavenge, much more than had been originally planned.

More than his problems with Sigrun as captain, he was becoming concerned about Emil. The younger man's file was … odd. It contained the basics: date and place of birth, parents' names, and then nothing until he started school at age sixteen. Apparently he'd been taught at home prior to that, though not very well as he was a poor student and, reading between the lines, Mikkel thought he was unpopular with both other students and his teachers. He dropped out midway through his second year to join the Cleansers, but he didn't fit in well there either.

The Cleansing job did not require advanced education but did require some physical prowess, and Cleansers tended to join quite young, usually at fourteen, the Swedish age of maturity. Emil was older and better educated than his peers in the Cleansers when he joined and, again reading between the lines, Mikkel thought he had offended both peers and superiors by expecting to advance more quickly than he had. He had not received a promotion in his two years of service, though he seemed to be a good Cleanser for his file described him as “a wizard with fire, able to do more with less than any other Cleanser I've trained.”

Cleansers, however, were not Hunters. Their job was to burn down anything that might give shelter to a grossling after the Hunters cleared out everything they could find, so they seldom encountered a live grossling and when they did, they tended to run away and call the Hunters back to deal with the problem. Watching and listening to Emil's muted responses to Sigrun's bloodthirsty enthusiasm, Mikkel feared that he would be one of those who were incapable of facing such horror. There had been not a few soldiers who had had to be sent back to Bornholm for that very reason, and that would be very unpleasant for them now, with no way to escape for weeks or possibly months.

Sigrun offhandedly asked Mikkel to radio back to base, which he greatly appreciated; he'd thought they should start the sponsors working on a rescue plan the night before, but better later than not at all. Before that, though, he felt Lalli needed recognition for scouting all night. How to do it, though, with no language in common?

Ah, but there was one language everyone shared. He had a cache of cookies which his mother had sent along, and he was certain that Lalli would understand one as a reward. He shook the weary scout awake, handed him a cookie, and told him, “Good job,” in the warmest tone he could manage. This worked less well than he expected as Lalli simply stared at the cookie, turning it around and around and even sniffing at it. Had the Finn never seen a cookie before? 

Mikkel watched for a moment, then shrugged and turned away. Eventually the scout would think to taste the cookie, or he wouldn't, and in either case, there was work to do. As he seated himself at the radio, he did not see Lalli's ecstatic expression at the taste of the cookie, nor did he see or hear Lalli's stealthy investigation of his satchel and removal of a handful of the cookies.

For a moment, Mikkel thought he would be able to contact their home base. The radio emitted a pleasant buzz and then –

Static. Loud static and getting louder; he could almost hear words in it.

> Mikkel ducked into the radioman's tent to ask, “Christensen, do we have word on when the ammo will be sent?”
> 
> “No, I haven't been able to get through to the base. The static is bad today.”
> 
> “Static? How is that such a problem?”
> 
> “Uh … well, it's loud.” Private Anders Christensen flipped a switch and the tent was full of static. Mikkel listened – were those words? – but then Christensen flipped the switch back and the tent was silent.
> 
> “Wait, I thought I heard – turn it on again!”
> 
> Christensen didn't move. “Corporal – no – it's not safe – ”
> 
> “What are you talking about, man?”
> 
> “The voices, you heard the voices. They're – they're the voices of the damned souls and if you listen too long – if you listen too long they start to make sense and then you're damned too.”
> 
> Mikkel stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded curtly. “Keep trying to get through. We need that ammo.” He turned and left the tent.

Mikkel was a practical, rational Danish soldier, not a superstitious Norwegian. He didn't believe in souls, damned or otherwise, and he didn't believe for a moment that the static could hurt him. That was definitely not why he switched off the radio immediately and went back to report to Sigrun that they would have to try again elsewhere.

* * *

The tank was on the move again, Lalli was curled up under Mikkel's bunk with a bucket thoughtfully placed near at hand by Mikkel himself as he didn't want to clean up any messes, Tuuri was driving, and the other three were crowded together where they could see out the front. Approaching the barrier which the Danish army had built with so much effort, Tuuri asked, “Um, is this from when your people tried to reclaim your land, Mikkel?”

“Yes, this is as far as we got. These defense mounds here are officially a decade old. They weren't of much use, to be honest. The winter was too mild, and the noise we made clearing the airport nearby eventually stirred up too many things in the city. All our defenses were taken out during the span of a single night.”

“Wow, yeah,” Emil drawled. “I didn't understand most of that, but what I did understand was … sooo lame.”

Mikkel glared at the brat. What did he know about life and death? “A lot of good people I knew died,” he stated, making a conscious effort not to grit his teeth.

> Mikkel was in Sweden when they got the word. The Danish army in Kastrup had fallen to the grosslings with no survivors.
> 
> Once, Mikkel knew, the Swedes and the Danes had fought each other, even killed each other's soldiers, but in the Year 80 of the Rash, all such hostility was forgotten. The loss of over three hundred immune men and women was a terrible blow not just to the Danes but to the entire human race, and the Swedes around him were nearly as shaken as he was. That the Danish government had “stockpiled the men's genetic potential”, as they expressed it in their bureaucratic fashion, was little consolation for their families and friends.
> 
> Mikkel went out and got drunk with the General.

“Oh, uh, right, I mean ...” Emil stammered, “… n-no offense?”

Mikkel grunted, forcing down the responses that came to mind. There was a strained silence.

“Did you work here?” Tuuri asked hesitantly, trying to change the mood. “During the time of the attack. I mean, I know you served in the army around that time, but ...”

“Oh, oh no. I **did** serve here, but I was – uh – _relocated_ a week before that fateful day.”

Sigrun chuckled and stage-whispered to Tuuri, “That means he was fired, right?”

> Dawn had driven the grosslings back to their lairs and the soldiers of the night watch were policing up their shotgun shells for reloading. No one had died during the night and only one had been injured; the grossling swarms were fewer and smaller now as if they had, at long last, cleared out most everything within earshot. At the same time, the soldiers were more widely separated on the new defensive line and they really needed more troops.
> 
> “… not be allowed to vote, much less breed,” Captain Knudsen was lecturing his aide as they approached. Mikkel ground his teeth. He had had just about enough of this. “The future is _ours_, after all.”
> 
> That was enough. “Not everyone comes from an immune family,” Mikkel stated, glaring at the captain. “My sister is non-immune, and she's in the army –“
> 
> “Back on Bornholm with the other Darwinian losers,” Knudsen sneered.
> 
> “Back on Bornholm patching up soldiers so they don't _die_,” Mikkel retorted. “She's got one bad gene, but she's just as good as any immune, and better than some.” His glare made it perfectly clear whom he considered “some”.
> 
> “_'Sir'_,” Knudsen prompted, glaring right back.
> 
> He shouldn't have said it. He knew he shouldn't say it even as he said it. “Don't 'sir' me. I work for a living.”
> 
> Knudsen's fair skin went scarlet with rage. “Pack your kit, **Private** Madsen. You're going back to Bornholm.”

“Either way,” Mikkel said, staring straight ahead and refusing to acknowledge Sigrun's whisper, “we're the first humans venturing this far since the dawn of our time.” That put an end to the discussion, and they rode in silence for some time.


End file.
